1s lose another close one despite skipper's heroics

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Musselburgh v Murrayfield DAFS

Saturday 14th May 2022Lewisvale Park (Grass)

By Garuda Ramapriya

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Musselburgh (20) - 133 all out off 44.3 oversA Ilyas 49, H Verma 21, A Singh 3-29, F Ross 3-12

Murrayfield DAFS (6) - 105 all out off 30.2 oversV Tyagi 42, V Devaraj 2-13, E Gatner 2-21

Musselburgh win by 28 runs

[/vc_column_text][vc_zigzag][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A beautiful day was in front of us to play cricket on the 14th May in Musselburgh. It indeed turned out to be very pleasant and sunny throughout the day. Vivek won the toss and decided that he wanted to bowl first as we had batted first in both of the 1's previous matches.We had Anand, Rajesh and Garuda debuting for the 1s, all of who were equally excited to be a part of it. We were informed that an official umpire for Scottish Cricket, Dermot Gilbert was present and would like to perform umpiring duties for the entire game and we were happy to accept it as its rare to get an umpire willing to perform the duties for the whole game.Tom Ritch started the proceedings and the first ball of the game  which was a bit wide on the offside was guided by the opening batter A.Ilyas to gully and it went straight in only to pop out. T.Ritch, albeit disappointed showed his frustration by bowling a beautiful line and length outside the off where the batters were clueless. At the other end, was Anand S(w)ingh as fondly called by Saurabh to start the proceedings. He was at his usual best in curving the ball in like a snake and successfully bowled E.Gatner in his first over itself for 0. Their next batsmen V.Devaraj fresh from a century in the previous game looked ominous again with a few doubles and a crisp boundary. At the other end T.Ritch continued to cast his spell on Ilyas and had him beaten continuously over after over with a few unlucky edges going in between the slips as well. Anand got another breakthrough when V.Devaraj was hurried onto a pull and was caught by Garuda at mid-on for 13. It was a great spell by both the teenager and Anand, Musselburgh were 25-2 after the first 10 overs. Another teenager R. Hussey came in as first change and Garuda came in as second.The next 10 overs were wicketless where Ilyas and the new batter C.Burnett were nudging away with singles, doubles and occasional boundaries. Vivek brought himself to bowl and was quick take the wicket of C.Burnett for 10 by knocking his stumps over with the score being 63-3 in the 24th over. A.Tufail fell soon for a score of 1 by a brilliant direct hit from F.Ross from deep fine leg with the score being 75-4. H.Verma and Ilyas hit a few mighty blows and Ilyas was finally bowled by Anand for 49 in his second spell after 4 dropped chances, one close run-out and a few yet near yet so far edges. A.Ahmed and Verma‘s partnership took the score beyond 100 in the 35th over and Fin was brought into the attack. He bowled a wonderful spell and we were able to restrict Musselburgh for a score of 133 all out with F.Ross finishing with 6-1-12-3 and Anand finishing his spell with 9-0-29-3, Vivek with 7.3-0-29-1 and 3 run outs.Muffs started their innings exactly the same way as Musselburgh, but the rub of the green went against them with L.Mulholland getting bowled behind his legs first ball of the innings. It was a feather touch and the opposition too realised that the ball grazed the stumps after a minute or so. LV.Chinni joined P. Hawkins to rebuild the innings. P.Hawkins fell to a blinder of a catch by M.Poojary at short cover and LV.Chinni and F.Ross were scalped to some good bowling. Vivek and Suthakar tried to rebuild the innings but even Suthakar and Garuda couldn’t stay for long with score being 44-6 and the end of 25 overs with Vivek playing the lone hand of taking the team through. He was joined by R.Hussey and they tried to play out the overs and try to see if the remaining score could be achieved in the last 10. Vivek hit some lusty blows and tried to up the ante but fell for a well-made 42 at the end of 38th over. Rajesh, Anand and Tom tried their best to get the team across the line but in the end Musselburgh had the fire power to hold us to 105, losing by 28 runs.Vivek top scored with 42 and R Hussey remained 16 not out. None of the other batters went into double figures. Everyone of Musselburgh bowlers were able to get one wicket at-least with V.Devaraj finishing with a miserly spell of 8.3-5-13-2 and E.Gatner finishing with 8-1-21-2. In the end it was the fielding that was the deciding factor with Murrayfield dropping 4 against Musselburgh's 1, in a low scoring encounter where both the teams bowled very well on a good wicket on a brilliantly sunny day and the game played in good spirits.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]